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responsibility

Sometimes the morality-thing can seem like a game, one where everyone just follows rules because those are the rules of the game and for no other reason than that. Sure, most of us believe murdering someone is wrong, but do we know why? What about the minor stuff, the everyday acts we take for granted? Is it really important we follow these rules? What is it that anchors down a moral code (if anything does)?

Ethics is the philosophical study of conduct, and conduct taken broadly can mean pretty much all of our actions in a given day! You’ve figured out that punching random strangers is a horrible thing to do, but you’ve likely never thought about whether or not the way you staple a stack of paper is ethical or morally right, but we perform our actions in a certain way for a reason, whether that reason is conscious to us or not. [Read more…] about Anchoring Down Morals: Developing Personal Responsibility

Reaching “Maturity” can be a hard thing to explain. However, it is worthwhile to attempt to, seeing as how it is an important concept in our social way of living. Involving conduct, perspective, and our philosophy about the world, maturity entails a person who has “come into their own” so to speak.

Connected to the very core of maturity lies responsibility. You may have been a youngin’ when your father or mother sat you down and proclaimed you were old enough to understand the notion of what it means to be responsible for your actions and that as a big boy or big girl you need to take up that responsibility. That may have just been a clever ploy to allow them to feel okay about punishing you now but typically there are wholesome reasons too. [Read more…] about Moral Responsibility and Maturity

A man, the defendant, sits solemnly and silently, while his lawyer paces the room. We, the audience, just now getting into the scene, know nothing about this man, what his charge his, etc. We do, however, catch the final argument from the lawyer.

“Ladies and gentleman of the jury. What my defendant did was unlawful, unjust, evil, say what you will. But the fault was not of his own. It was not his hand that started these actions, but the hand of his father as he beat the defendant as a young boy so many years ago. And by the hand of his mother as she neglected him and shared his drug use as a teenager. This past no doubt has set my defendant up to do this crime. It started, not from his own free will, but from the coercion of others horrible actions.